Corinne Griffith

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Corinne Griffith


Corinne Griffith - Biography
Born:November 21, 1894 in Texarkana, TX
Death:July 4, 1979 in Santa Monica, CA
The Orchid Lady of the silent screen, Corinne Griffith (born Griffin) became a star
with First National in the 1920s, her films more noted for their protagonist's much
lauded beauty than any dramatic claims. Her later court testimony to the contrary,
the former dancer had made her screen debut with Vitagraph as far back as 1915, when
she was considered a replacement for the defecting Anita Stewart. Top stardom, however,
eluded her until signing with First National in 1924. Tagged The Orchid Lady of the
Screen, Griffith played a series of beautiful yet suffering women in dramas whose focal
points became the star's ever-changing wardrobe. She made up for a lack of thespian
talent by sheer beauty, however, much like the later Billie Dove and Hedy Lamarr. As a
personality rather than an actress, Griffith was ill-equipped to tackle talkies, and is
considered one of the more notorious casualties of sound.
The studio did everything they could for her, however, and the expensively mounted
The Divine Lady (1929), a silent with talkie sequences, for which she earned an Academy
Award nomination for playing Lady Hamilton, was vastly popular and so was Saturday's
Children (1939), from Maxwell Anderson's stage hit. Griffith's voice, unfortunately,
was not distinct and she retired in 1932, after a notorious string of flops. A wealthy
woman due to shrewd real-estate investments, the outspoken, politically conservative
Griffith proved a fine author, whose childhood memoirs were turned into Papa's Delicate
Condition, a pleasantly nostalgic family comedy that featured the Academy Award-winning
song "Call Me Irresponsible."

Despite her literary triumphs, Griffith remained a controversial figure and never more
so than during the divorce proceedings from one of her four husbands. On the witness
stand, Griffith issued the startling claim that she wasn't the real Corinne Griffith at
all, but her much -- MUCH! -- younger sister and stand-in, the original silent star
having died years before. A parade of former coworkers, including actress Lois Wilson,
then took the stand, all testifying that the plaintiff was unmistakably the one and only
Corinne Griffith.

Earning a bit of renewed notoriety when her memoirs were sold to Paramount, Griffith
herself returned to the screen briefly in 1957, when she accepted a supporting role in
something called Stars in the Back Yard, a cheap Hugo Haas production about former film
actors making their own home movie. Retitled Paradise Alley, the film was finally
released to stony silence in 1961.

[mrcheese]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinne_Griffith
http://www.doctormacro1.info/Movie%2...inne-Annex.htm

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